Digital Commons Network^™

Modern Creativity Thriving Through The Roots Of Occupational Therapy, Kelly Allen

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Peace, a client artist at Corvilla, provided the cover art for the Spring 2025 issue of the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). This untitled artwork is a mixed-media painting featuring a vase of daisies, hand-drawn by Peace, which was engraved into reclaimed wood with a CNC machine, painted, and hand-sanded to reveal the image through the contrast of paint and wood. This and many other artworks are produced daily and sold in the storefront of the organization. Corvilla’s art program, Studio Five9, echoes the earliest models of arts and crafts workshops found in rehabilitation facilities in the early 20th …

Assessing Social Media Experiences Of Young Adults And Its Impact On Mental Functions And Daily Routine Performances, Dominique E. Barron, Lakeisa Boykin

Spring 2025 OTD Capstone Symposium

This capstone project is a qualitative research study investigating the relationship between social media and the wellbeing of users.

Social Belonging In Post-Resettlement Refugees: The Role Of Aid Organizations In The United States, Jessica Jean Byers

Theses and Dissertations

Since 1975, an estimated 3.6 million refugees have entered the United States (USA Facts, 2024). The months and even years following resettlement can be difficult and isolating for refugees. Previous research has shown that creating connections with others can enhance well-being, feelings of security, and self-reliance, all of which are especially needed for vulnerable populations such as refugees (Archambault et al., 2022; Giovanetti et al., 2022). Using the theory of social network analysis and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with aid organization leaders, this study seeks to understand the relationship between refugees and aid organizations during the post-resettlement phase. It also explores …

Playing To Win: The Use Of Export Controls To Address Non-Military Strategic Competition, Joshua Angelo

Duke Law & Technology Review

Technology and national security have been intimately related throughout American history. Over the past eighty-five years, the United States has increasingly made use of export controls to prevent adversarial countries from using the fruits of its technological advancement to strengthen their militaries and harm American interests. Today, strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China involves a myriad of technologies which present risks outside of, as well as within, the military context. Chinese exports of technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G communications, can promote the country’s authoritarian model abroad, enable economic coercion, and help to enrich the regime. …

Redefining "I Do": Marital Attitudes Among Generation Z, Ryley G. Bethle

Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to explain the attitudes of Generation Z toward marriage. In a larger sense, to also understand previous generational cohorts’ marital values to discover that these values are shaped by changes in technology, individualism, and societal norms. This thesis also will lean into Twenge’s framework that poses that marital values are not influenced by individual choices, but rather an overarching generational influence. There is heavy influence of technology discussed as this generation are the first to grow up as digital natives, and the introduction of online dating has expanded their relationship landscape for better or for worse. A …

Virtual Victor: Bringing Our Mascot To Life, Juan D. Guzman-Duran, Jonathan T. Hunnacutt, Honesty Beaton

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

In this project, we transformed the Fort Hays State University tiger mascot into a fully rigged, animated virtual character. Using Adobe’s character animation tools, we created a model that can mirror and perform human movements in real time. The system uses a camera to track facial expressions and body motion, which are then mapped onto the tiger character. This poster includes the following: "Why We Made Virtual Victor," "Procedure," "Why is Victor Useful," and "What We Learned."

The Effects Of Technology Use In The Classroom Relating To Student Achievement And Engagement, Tayler Nickell

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Technology has made vast improvements in recent years which in turn has trickled into the education system making classrooms switch from traditional learning to learning with the use of technology. Research has shown that there are both advantages and disadvantages to using technology in the classroom. This study aims to find the right balance for technology use with both students and teachers while focusing on student achievement and engagement during their school careers. The researcher read through various scholarly journal articles relating to the topic of the effects of technology on student achievement and engagement. Based on the research, a …

Vr For Tourism (Assessment), Nevan Bermingham

Case studies: Digital Education

1st Year marketing and tourism modules typically employ assessments that are written or presentation-based, and due to the complexities of timetable delivery, rarely are able to share common assessments. Technology is of growing importance to both marketing and tourism businesses due to ability to connect with potential customers through various online channels such as websites, social media, email, and search engines, making it easier to build brand awareness and drive sales with new or existing audiences. Technology also plays a significant role in tourism marketing, enhancing the reach and effectiveness of marketing efforts. I introduced a new joint assessment shared …

A Wildfire Of A Thousand Words: Teaching Students How To Combat Pseudoscience In 2025, Michael Koperski

Honors Projects

When it comes to the modern age classroom, the world which both the students and teachers live in is filled to the brim with misinformation. Particularly, this misinformation comes in the form of pseudoscience, which showcases wrongfully applying scientific evidence to nonscientific phenomena. At the same time, there seemed to be a lack of understanding revolving around how this information could be wrong, especially given it has a basis in and can be spread further by the misuse of artificial intelligence. However, this project serves as a step stone towards potentially finding the means to help teach students the issue …

Incorporating Technology And Engineering Literacy Into The 4th Through 8th Grade Educational Experience, Robert Beauchamp

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone project addresses the lack of technology and engineering literacy education at the elementary and middle school levels. The purpose of this capstone project is to help educators at schools without a STEM focus improve the technology and engineering literacy of their 4th through 8th grade students. The project was designed to create a series of practical and engaging professional development sessions tailored to educators with limited time and resources. To achieve this the existing standards and research were reviewed with a concentration on the ITEEA Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy (STEL), the impact of experiential learning in …

Lbsci 700 / Info 7001. The Technology Of Information., Brandon K. Jeffries Mr.

Open Educational Resources

This course will introduce the student to the conceptual and practical elements of visual and computer literacy for the library and information science profession. Particular attention will be paid to the place and role of libraries and information centers. A laboratory session following each class will give students the opportunity to apply some of the concepts learned in class.

Lbsci 700 / Info 7001. The Technology Of Information., Brandon K. Jeffries Mr.

Open Educational Resources

This course will introduce the student to the conceptual and practical elements of visual and computer literacy for the library and information science profession. Particular attention will be paid to the place and role of libraries and information centers. A laboratory session following each class will give students the opportunity to apply some of the concepts learned in class.

Infringing Information Architectures, Michael Goodyear

Articles & Chapters

Information architectures—systems that facilitate storing and sharing data and content—underpin daily life, from streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Since the printing press, these systems and their novel features have challenged the bounds of copyright law, leading to accusations that providers and users directly infringe others’ copyrights. Almost fifty years ago, however, a largely unexplored paradigm shift occurred. Copyright owners started to allege that information architecture providers should be broadly secondarily liable for all their users’ infringements. These claims, which this Article terms architectural infringement claims, pose an acute challenge to the …

Ethical Ai Use And Classroom Integration Training Modules, Daniel Boudon

Open Educational Resources

This project focuses on developing comprehensive training modules to equip students and faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to ethically and effectively use AI tools in academic settings. The training consists of interconnected modules that cover a wide range of topics, including the ethical use of AI, evaluating AI-generated content, integrating AI tools into curriculum design, and creating AI-enhanced classroom activities. Additional modules emphasize fostering digital literacy, staying updated with AI advancements, and collaborating on best practices for AI in education.

Designed for flexibility, the modules cater to diverse academic disciplines, making them suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses, …

Promises, Promises: Understanding Claims Made In Social Robot Consumer Experiences, Johanna Gunawan, Sarah Elizabeth Gillespie, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Social robots are a class of emerging smart consumer electronics devices that promise sophisticated experiences featuring emotive capabilities, artificial intelligence, conversational interaction, and more. With unique risk factors like emotional attachment, little is known on how social robots communicate these promises to consumers and whether they adequately deliver upon them within their overall product experiences prior to and during user interaction.

Animated by a consumer protection lens, this paper systematically investigates manufacturer claims made for four commercially available social robots, evaluating these claims against the provided user experience and consumer reviews. We find that social robots vary widely in the …

Volume 27 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2012, is a special speculative fiction issue dedicated to the memory of Ray Bradbury, Harry Harrison, and Neil Armstrong, three figures who profoundly shaped humanity’s vision of the future. The issue, archived as Volume 27, Issue 1, corresponds to the print edition labeled Volume 31, Issue 1. Due to necessary metadata adjustments in the digital archiving process, some volume and issue numbers in the online collection may not match those printed in the original journals.

In his editorial preface, James Ritchie explores the literary significance …

Public Surveillance And Human Rights: The Chilling Effect Of Surveillance Technologies And Legal Debates In Europe, Anna Calabrese

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

The rapid advancement and intense deployment of surveillance technologies pose a profound threat to fundamental human rights and render the balance between national security and rights and freedoms guarantees even more challenging. This paper interrogates the menace that digital tracking such as IMSI-catchers and other sophisticated tools represent to contemporary democracies with a specific focus on their potential to introduce a “chilling effect” to deter individuals in political and social communities from exercising their freedoms of speech, expression, association, thereby endangering the core values of all democracy. This analysis offers an overview of the state-of-the-art in Europe and highlights recent …

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Oer Learning In Disguise Toolkit, Alessandra Early, Nicole Mckenna

Open Educational Resources

The OER Learning in Disguise Toolkit, created by Doctors Alessandra Early and Nicole McKenna, is a series of learning materials that ask students to apply key criminal justice concepts to arenas like social media or popular culture, emphasizing media literacy, active reading, and creative thinking. The toolkit includes an introduction; five assignment descriptions (each divided into an instructor-facing section with notes on how to explain the assignment, and a student-facing section with the sample assignment description); one in-class activity; and an appendix with additional readings and materials.

Ethics In Digital Marketing: A Gen-Z’S Perspective, Suruchi Bhatt

School of Business

Almost 72% of Americans report they have a sense of being tracked online through their cellphones, by their advertisers or companies they follow, around 20% think their activities across their days are tracked, with almost 47% reporting the government tracks their cellphones, behaviors, and everything they do online. (Atske, 2019) It is no secret that when people say privacy is a myth, it is upon the behaviors of the companies to inform the customers of what, where, and why their activity is being tracked. Answering how the activity is tracked and when it will be tracked are key factors that …

A Meta-Analysis Of Technology Usage In Word Problem Solving Interventions For Elementary Students: An Application Of The Samr Model, Joelle Prate, Jennifer E. Kong, Lamiya Hoque, Trisha Sugita, Tanya Belom

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This meta-analysis assessed the effect of the usage of technology in math interventions on the math achievement of students in kindergarten to the fifth grade. The SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) (Puentedura, 2006) model was applied to evaluate the degree of technology integration within the math intervention. Twelve group studies met the criteria for inclusion in this meta-analysis. Overall, technology interventions yielded a significant positive effect on the math achievement of elementary-aged students with learning disabilities (LD) (ES = 1.34). While no significant differences in effect sizes were found by function of the SAMR model, the studies that utilize technology …

Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, And The Rush To War, Jonathan Alexander, Robert H. Latiff

Naval War College Review

No abstract provided.

Learning From Experience: What Is Successful Respite During And Post-Pandemic?, Jennifer A. Crittenden, Darlene Sansone, Kristina Brant, Jennifer Odum, Caitlin O'Brien, Lisa Mccormick

GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy

The COVID-19 pandemic had immediate and long-lasting impacts on both kinship families and the organizations that serve them. During the pandemic, as families navigated health challenges, economic consequences, and school and daycare closures, relatives as parents programs (RAPPs) were challenged to surmount staffing and programming hurdles to meet family needs. Despite the difficulties posed by the pandemic, RAPPs developed creative solutions to offer respite programming. Some of these programs continue to be used today, over four years after the start of the pandemic. This article describes the presentations and discussions that took place during a 90-minute workshop at the 2023 …

Drinking Vessels (Rytha) From Tel Ya‘Oz (Hebrew, Pp. 25*–37*; English Summary, Pp. 203–204), Irit Ziffer, Raz Kletter, Orit Segal

'Atiqot

Three drinking vessels (rytha) were found in the Persian-period building at Tel Ya‘oz: an almost complete human-headed rython and two animal heads, of a ram and a lion. The anthropomorphic rython is undoubtedly the most extraordinary of the three. It is a local adaptation of an Achaemenid vessel that was used at royal banquets. Its Egyptian appearance might suggest that is was created by an Egyptian working on the Levantine coast, or by a Levantine trained in Egyptian iconography.

Engaging Students With Interdisciplinary Learning Community Project For Freshman Composition And Digital Media Students, Hsi-Ling Huang, Xin Xu

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

Studies have shown that Learning Communities have many benefits, including “[f]ostering workforce skills, encouraging problem-solving skills, and increasing retention and success” for both faculty and students (Dodge and Kendall, College Teaching, 2004). In this project, we created an interdisciplinary Learning Community Project that allowed a Freshman Composition (FC) course to pair with a Digital Media (DM) course (Sophomore students) for students to work on a mini magazine. Students in FC were writers whose tasks focusing on writing and researching, whereas students in DM were copy editors whose tasks focusing on graphic design and layout. The goal was for students …

Reflexive Pedagogy: A Closer Look At Saudi College Students’ Responses To English Poetry, Haifa Almufayrij

International Journal for Research in Education

This study aims to explore Saudi college students’ analytical abilities by focusing on their engagement with English poetry through reflective learning practices. The study employed a multimodal approach and multimedia to interpret poetry, focusing on enhancing students' understanding of poetry while also examining the effectiveness of this instructional method. The poems selected for the study are from the British Romantic Period (1789–1830). It is a strategic implementation of a culturally appropriate pedagogy that utilises visual language to interpret poems in English. Independently constructing their own videos provided students with a chance to replace traditional written interpretation of poems in the …

Whose Innovation? Philanthropic And School-Based Visions Of High School In The Xq Super School Competition, Brett G. Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The XQ Institute, funded by Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, launched a design competition in 2015 to find the most innovative high schools in the country. Their goal was to spark a movement that would revolutionize secondary school in the United States, a system they claimed was 100 years behind the times. Called the Super School Project, the winning ten teams each received $10 million. While XQ claims that the best ideas about high school reform come from communities and student voice, they also have funded selective ideas about “innovation,” including computer-based personalized learning. The organization’s efforts have grown in …

Secondary Stage Students' Perceptions Regarding (Myschool) Learning Management System's Role In Learning English, Huda Ali Sallam

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

This study set out to explore students' opinions and self-efficacy level in relation to the use of MySchool learning management system. The study has added focus on its usefulness in facilitating English language learning. The study sample involved 420 female secondary stage students within one educational district in Riyadh. The study instrument is a 24-item closed-ended questionnaire which was distributed using a Microsoft Forms link. The items of the questionnaire were divided into four main elements: perceived practicality, perceived usefulness, general satisfaction, and sense of self-efficacy. The obtained data was subsequently analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) 24 …

K–12 Educators’ Use Of Technology And Experiences With Technostress: A Case Study, Greg Blair Pittman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation explored the increased use of technology in K–12 classrooms, which is causing educators to experience technostress. The purpose of the qualitative, descriptive, single case study was to explore the experiences of K–12 teachers with technology and technostress—techno-insecurity, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-uncertainty, and techno-overload—in a West Texas private school district. The researcher conducted one-to-one interviews with seven K-12 educators and two senior leadership team members. In addition, open-ended online questionnaires were available for K–12 educators and senior leadership team members. Thematic analysis was used to locate and communicate the findings. The principal research question was: How do K–12 classroom …